Page 64 of His Betrothed
“She insisted she couldn’t return to her parents, and I knew there was nowheresafer for such an innocent girl. She wouldn’t accept my hospitality in the manor, so I gave her a cottage. She insisted on paying rent.”
“I’m not surprised.”
They were both silent, listening to the rustle of the grasses and the squawking of birds.
“My lord,” Heywood began hesitantly, “now that we know of your visit, perhaps you will stay at the manor.”
“No.”
Heywood rose swiftly to his feet.“Surely you know it is unseemly to remain with Lady Roselyn.”
“Perhaps,” Spencer conceded, looking up at the bailiff, “but if you tell no one I’m here, who will know?”
“But she is only a poor widow—”
“Who was to be my wife,” Spencer interrupted, but without the anger he’d come to expect. “Let us say that she and I have our own bargain.”
“Do you plan to marry her?”
“No,” he said flatly, andwas surprised by a flash of regret. “There are things I can’t tell you, ways she is in danger. But I won’t be here much longer.”Only five days.
As Spencer rose and began to limp away, he said over his shoulder, “Remember—tell no one I am here.”
“My family will have to know.”
“You have my permission,” he said, thinking wryly of John Heywood. He turned around to pin the bailiff with his gaze.“But no one else.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
Spencer found Roselyn kneeling in her kitchen garden, the hot sun making waves of heat rise from her black dress. In between weeding, she wiped her face with her forearm.
He stepped into the courtyard, knowing she heard him. She didn’t bother to get up, so he sat on the bench and watched her.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your baby?” he asked ina low voice.
He saw her shoulders stiffen, imagined the pain she must be feeling.
And then he understood.
He saw her serenity for what it was—a mask to disguise her feelings, to keep everything inside. When she stood up to face him, she was as dry-eyed and remote as he knew she’d be.
“Who told you?” she asked.
“I found the graveyard.”
Roselyn remained calm, letting the spasm of old griefslumber again. She wiped her hands on a rag and finally looked up at Spencer.
So now he knew. Would he mock her child as he’d mocked her marriage, calling Mary a—
But she stopped the word from even forming in her mind, and knew suddenly that he would not hurt the memory of a child.
“So why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again.
“It is not the first thing I share with strangers.”
Was his smilesad? she wondered, and felt the prick of tears she despised shedding.
“I understand you better,” he said softly.
